That's a Stalinist bit of PR with little substance I'm afraid. If it were true, the rates of Iraqi opposition to the occupation would be much lower.

However, also consider this, from Jerry Bremer no less!

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0215-03.htm

Has that much changed for the better after so much death and destruction in the last year?

Iraq's deputy prime minister Barham Saleh told reporters in London that the health situation in Iraq was "not good" but it was improving not deteriorating.

He said "the level of devastation that Saddam Hussein has left us with was unimaginable" and added that health budgets were increasing.

And the health ministry in Iraq isn't even able to count how many civilian dead there are in Iraq:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-10-iraq-civilians_x.htm

And only from last week:
[from an emergency room doctor in Iraq, saying what is confirmed time and again in other reports]

In the emergency department, Dr Mohanad Mesar tells me the hospital has seen little of Iraq's $1bn health budget.

More drugs are being brought into the country, but without a government, they are not being distributed.

The ministry of health tells me they are getting more drugs, they are getting better equipment, things are improving.

"I wish....and this moment, or after one week, one month, one year....I don't know," says Dr Mesar.

In fact no one here knows. When you speak to Iraq's civil servants, they will tell you of their numerous successes.

Doctors in a yard at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital
Doctors say a lack of political leadership is hampering their work

They say money is available for rebuilding ministries, plans and projects are in place.

But without a decision on who will run the country, there seems to be paralysis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4357323.stm

or from a contractor:

The San Francisco company provides security for firms in Iraq, and Kurtz speaks with his employees there -- Westerners and Iraqis -- every week on a conference call.

Kurtz said there seems to be a sense within the country that progress is being made, but it hasn't stopped the attacks his people must evade or defeat. He noted that while many construction projects have started across the country, few have been finished. If anything, he said, the pace seems to be slowing.

"The contracting business has dropped off, literally," he said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/20/BUGMGBS0MB1.DTL&type=printable

A health ministry spokesman told IWPR that all hospital buildings and almost 90 per cent of health centres require repair or total reconstruction, the total cost of which is estimated to be close to four billion US dollars - more than twice as much as the ministry has at its disposal this year.

http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_118_3_eng.txt

And this from a leading capitalist organ of information dissmnination and lead supporter of both invasion and current US occupation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A809-2004Nov20?language=printer

They quote the pro-war and pro-occupation thinking tank CSIS:

"In its most recent assessment of five sectors of Iraq's reconstruction, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research group, said health care was worsening at the quickest pace."

Are you sure I'm in denial?
Schilling [that damned Bush fan] had better fix his ankle there GM or we're not gonna repeat for another 86 years, eh? Kudos to you for being, unlike your liberal friend Cooper, not quick to hit the "SHUT UP" button. In my book you and Woody understand what it means to be accepting of different views.

Posted by steve at May 25, 2005 12:59 PM

steve, I'd be much more impressed if much of your information and comment didn't come from the much vaunted but oh-so-very biased BBC. In fact, it was the BBC that disbelieved and wouldn't publish anything from that Czech journalist because they couldn't "buy" his report that US Troops morale was excellent.

Stalinist? LOL, not hardly.

Posted by GM Roper at May 25, 2005 01:11 PM

GM, you evidently missed the quotes from the pro-war CSIS, Washington Post? The quotes from the Iraqi health minsistry officials, emergency room doctors, etc. Or the Contractor Steele group?
The broadsheet you cite [which in its earlier form was so silly it got easily picked apart as a chain letter]. I didn't just cite the BBC [in fact I didn't cite the BBC at all, I cited a report from them in which they quote a pretty reliable source, an emergency room doctor-no?]. Then I provided you with sources that are quite sympathetic [like yourself] to the war [Washington Post] and occupation [WPost and CSIS] and hope it turns out as a successful occupation [I think that perspective is naive to put it mildly].
You don't really respond to them, you just assert, incorrectly, that I've provided you with one source to refute the Stalinist broadsheet that refers to absolute numbers and little else to support the contention that things are improving greatly in Iraq.

I've never quite understood the preoccupation with showing how much things have 'improved' though in the health arena. I mean the contribution of the US to targetting the water system with bombs prior to the official invasion of Iraq was responsible for all kinds of public health havoc in Iraq during the post-Gulf War era:
http://www.progressive.org/0901/nagy0901.html

I mean in one ear we're attacking water treatment facilities and now we're heroically saving the pubilc health system of Iraq?

Posted by steve at May 25, 2005 01:28 PM

"In fact, it was the BBC that disbelieved and wouldn't publish anything from that Czech journalist because they couldn't "buy" his report that US Troops morale was excellent."

No, they wouldn't buy stuff from a guy who obviously has an agenda of showing that all is well in Iraq and appears to be in a serious state of denial. Finding troops with high morale is not a real story, nor is it even the story that needs coverage right now I wouldn't think. The BBC, if anything, is more influenced by British military officials who lament daily the US military strategies as over the top in ways that undermine the occupation. And that makes sense, since the BBC is little different, especially in its editorial staff levels, from Yon. They hope to find a way to make the occupation 'successful'. From their vantage that is done by critically reporting on the occupation and Yon's way is to gloss over reality on the ground. Both are of the same mind as concerns occupation however, so what's the big deal? BBC and Yon are both naive to think the occupation can lead to something other than what it has led to already.

Posted by steve at May 25, 2005 01:33 PM

'steve' commented, " that's the job of an occupier in any event, to provide needed infrastructure to a recovering vanquished country, no?"

Um, historically? No. Historically, the U.S. has set the standard there. THAT'S news... at least to those who have no idea how victors of wars prior to U.S. dominance conducted themselves. Rapine, plunder and devastation were the norm.

Until now.

Who rebuilt Europe after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy? Who rebuilt Japan after the defet of Imperial Japan? And who, contrary to the vast weight of historical precedent, has time and again poured blood and treasure into helping those who were its erstwhile enemies?

I'll give you one clue: it's not been Muslim jihadists or their ilk.

'steve' begins with a false premise and so, quite contrary to the mountain of evidence that the blood and treasure poured by the U.S. into Iraq so far has resulted in truly astounding accomplishments, cannot come to a rational conclusion.

Posted by David at May 25, 2005 05:40 PM

David, great comment and thanks.

Folks, David runs a great site at http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com Go visit and tell him GM said hi!

Posted by GM Roper at May 25, 2005 06:49 PM

"Historically, the U.S. has set the standard there. THAT'S news... at least to those who have no idea how victors of wars prior to U.S. dominance conducted themselves. Rapine, plunder and devastation were the norm."

My name is Steve, not 'Steve', what is it with the quotation marks anyhow? The standard is not anything 'new'. Japanese claimed to be doing the same thing when they set up camp, as did the Brits. Look at Niall Ferguson's recent article in the Times lamenting how badly the occupation that he so strongly supports is going [I mean gosh, when ya've got the likes of him moaning and you're still insisting things are great, progress, progress, who cares what the CSIS says, who cares what the Iraqi Health Ministry says in their more candid moments, emergency room doctors,...]. Every occupying power comes up with these kinds of Stalin-like absolute numbers to 'prove' how humane they are to the natives.

There is no rebuilding of Iraq's economy going on David. We've privatized every last bit of it already, the exact opposite of what we did to make Germany and Japan grow after the war.

Posted by steve at May 25, 2005 07:00 PM

Steve (and thanks for the correction concerning the quotation marks :-) makes this point:

" Japanese claimed to be doing the same thing when they set up camp, as did the Brits."

And indeed, the Japanese did make that claim. As did the Brits. Unfortunately... as opposed to the completely factual claims that the U.S. have poured blood and treasure into rebuilding and bettering the lives of those people who dwell in countries whose regimes have been defeated in battle, the Japanese claims were pure B.S. And the Brits? Well, sure _some_ people did do better, but anyone who has one whit of actual historical knowledge 9as opposed to simply knowing how to parrot propaganda), the British raj ruled India with a brutal irom fist, as opposed to the irrefutably gentle manner in which the U.S. (by comparison) has treated every single country's people whose rulers it has defeated in battle.

Steve, you are blowing pure hot air when you cite the absolutely complete and unalloyed B.S. that Japan, for example _claims_ to have been generous conquerors, when in plain historical fact they were as brutal and savage as Tammerlane--or worse.

Cite one true historical example (I assure you there are a _few_) that falls within one order of magnitude of American generosity toward defeated enemies, please. (Let me give you one clue: 1633--rare even then.)

But even the best of the best before examples America's example of generosity toward defeated enemies pale in comparison to the herculean efforts being made _on behalf of the Iraqi peoples_ by the U.S. today.

Steve, go read Arthur Chrenkoff's site a while and then come back and attempt to argue that what America is doing in Iraq is not extraordinary. Find one--just ONE--example in all of histgory Apart from America's generosity toward a fallen foe that even approaches the efforts made by the U.S. to aid the conquered.

You cannot. And that you trot out Japanese lies and British exaggerations (and complete coverups of immense brutality) speaks a lot for your lack of historical knowledge or acumen.

There are, as i said, some rare examples of generosity toward conquered foes, but they are rare indeed, and none, ever in the history of mankind even begin to compare with the generosity of America toward its conquered enemies.

None. Survey history. Run the numbers.

(Please pardon the brusqueness. I've dealt with obdurate subliterates in the flesh several times today, and meeting apparent wilfull ignorance online is... tiring.)

I have no further use for this topic. *LOL* Next.

Posted by David at May 25, 2005 07:39 PM

"Please pardon the brusqueness. I've dealt with obdurate subliterates in the flesh several times today, and meeting apparent wilfull ignorance online is... tiring."---David

Posted by dougf at May 25, 2005 08:08 PM